SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY 



north and had not been seen for eight weeks, I took a 

 walk in the vicinity of Cape Evans. There was a hint 

 of twihght to the north, appearing as a gray-blue sky 

 extending across the outlet of MacMurdo Sound. This 

 gave some little light which was reflected by the uni- 

 versal covering of snow. It was impossible to make 

 out ridge or hollow on the snow surface, in the dim 

 light; but a distant black object like Tent Island was 

 faintly visible, while a snow cliff just ahead could not 

 be detected. There happened to be no wind, though 

 the temperature was —25° F., and so I was able to 

 walk for a time without a helmet. The most pictur- 

 esque time in Antarctica, however, is when the sun 

 is just setting and rolls along the horizon like a great 

 golden football. Thus late in March I noted that the 

 landscape, in place of a monotonous white, now glowed 

 a rosy-pink where the sun glanced on the snow fields. 

 The open water appeared salmon or buff in color, while 

 the newly frozen ice was iridescent like tar. The 

 shadow of Brown Island to the south was lemon-green, 

 changing to purple in the distance over Mount Dis- 

 covery. For a few minutes our own shadows were the 

 most vivid bright blue! 



Topography 



In this section I propose to describe principally those 

 features of the topography which give it its special 

 facies and differentiate it from a region undergoing 

 normal erosion by rain or rivers. I shall follow some- 

 what the order in which an investigator would meet 

 with the examples, i.e., the coastal features come first, 



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